Joe Manganiello Talks About ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and Life after ‘True Blood’

This is Not the First Time Manganiello Has Called Out Stella:

Fans of Joe Manganiello from HBO’s True Blood are in for a treat on the 20th September, when the actor who plays the ex-packmaster, Alcide Herveaux, steps on stage. He will be playing Stanley Kowalski in the renowned play by Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desireat the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT.

This is not the first time Manganiello has played Stanley though. When attending scene classes at Carnegie Mellon University, he was often called on to play the role. And then, in 2008, he took on the role complete in a production in West Virginia. Yale rep, Mark Rucker, didn’t even have to see Joe audition for this part and hired him on the spot after catching just a few glimpses of him in True Blood. Joe, it appears, is just happy to be finally be playing a human!

Speaking of True Blood, Joe Manganiello recently spoke to Playbill.com and had this to say about the popular vampires series finishing up in 2014:

It’s mixed. I just have so much love in my heart for the character that I get to play. I am forever grateful to the show for the opportunities it opened up. It changed my life and gave me the opportunity to write a book, start a company and direct a documentary. And to be able to do Streetcar. I haven’t been able to be a part of the New York theatre scene or get out there and do a play. I hadn’t been able to do a play in four years. To be able to have the freedom to make the choice to be able to do the types of things that I want to do, I owe that all to the show. It’s going to be sad saying goodbye to those people, but with that said, there is an incredible amount of excitement for me because the show giveth and it also tooketh away. [Laughs.] It opened all these doors for me that I hadn’t been able to walk through.

And being able to finally walk through those doors of opportunity are something Joe will no longer take for granted. After turning down a TV role early in his career, he decided to concentrate only on movie roles. This lead to the a part in Spider Man in 2002 – and then work dried up for four years! Manganiello attributes this lack of work directly to his partying ways and abuse of alcohol. It appears to have been a turning point for the actor:

It doesn’t matter what the substance is. It’s just the tip of the iceberg peeking out of the real problem which lies underneath. Every aspect of my life was as close to being ruined as possible. You get to a point where you’ve done so much damage to yourself and you’re deathly afraid of what happens next. What makes you seek help is you’re continually looking into the faces of people that you’ve hurt. I realized I needed to change — but it took a while.

It turns out that this life experience is the very thing that he will now be able to draw on for his role in A Streetcar Named Desire:

This play is such an exploration of the human side of an abusive relationship with an active alcoholic but a large portion of Stella staying with Stanley is the sex… He doesn’t have to do a lot to establish who is man of the house. He just needs to walk into the room.

Once more it seems Manganiello’s outstanding physique will come into good use!

Besides the final season of True Blood and A Streetcar Named Desire, Manganiello has a lot of other things on his plate. He has an exercise book due out on the 3rd of December called Joe Manganiello’s Evolution: The Cutting-Edge Guide to Breaking Down Mental Walls and Building the Body You’ve Always Wanted (published by Galley Books. You can pre-order your copy here), a movie called Sabotage (starring another body builder, Arnold Schwarzenegger) to be released on January 24th and, finally, it has been announced that a new script is being developed for Magic Mike 2.

It seems there is no looking back for Joe Manganiello! If you want to catch him in his performance of Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, tickets range between $20 to $98 ( and $20 for preview tickets running between September 23 to 25). The production starts on September 20 and runs through to October 12 at Yale Repertory Theatre, 222 York St., New Haven. You can find out more on their website: www.yalerep.orgor by calling: 203-432-1234

Let us know if you are attending A Streetcar Named Desire by commenting below.